Gnomoria is a sandbox village management game where you help lead a small group of gnomes, who have set out on their own, to thrive into a bustling kingdom! Anything you see can be broken down and rebuilt elsewhere. Craft items, build structures, set traps and dig deep underground in search of precious resources to help your gnomes survive the harsh lands. Build your kingdom and stockpile wealth to attract wandering gnomads to your cause, but be wary of also attracting enemies!

For those of you that like RTS and/or RPG genre's, you'll probably love Gnomoria. Especially anyone that enjoys Dwarf Fortress or similar games.

At the time of this review, the game is at a very early stage of Alpha. Despite that, it's fully playable and I've thrown just as many hours at it as I have other big name titles. Which is a lot. :D

I like to think of the game as a Kingdom Simulator. You don't directly control your "Gnomes" and instead, you give orders and the first available gnome with that skill selected, will carry out the order. There are a few games out there like this. The huge difference here is the ability to Terraform your surroundings, mine deep underground, collect valuable resources, fine tune exactly which gnomes will attempt which jobs, level up the skills of those gnomes, and exploit various strategies to keep your gnomes fed and happy. And it's all sandbox, so you can play how you want to play.

The graphics are a bit non-animated, but it doesn't detract from the gameplay. And if you have ever played DF.. all but the most diehard of ascii fans will likely appreciate the graphics Gnomoria does have.

The icing on the cake, is that author RoboB0b is very friendly and open about development. So far he has a track record of putting out quality updates really quickly. I haven't regretted my purchase one bit, and probably won't anytime soon.

If you have any doubts, give the Demo a try. It's the full game, limited only by a 6 day time limit.

I really like Dwarf Fortress, but the biggest problem I have with the game is that everytime I take a break from it and pick it back up later, I have forgotten all the important comands and processes to keep your fort functioning. I also wished it had better graphics. But this game has answered both of those problems. The game has captured the essence of Dwarf Fortress. The graphics are great and the commands are easier to figure out. There needs to be more enemies and it lacks the amazing amount of content and complexity that Dwarf fortress has, but it's nice to play a game that I don't have to relearn every time I pick it up.

Gnomoria is currently in alpha-state which means there's plenty to improve before it's concidered as a finished product. This doesn't mean that it's unplayable, quite the contrary, it's a cheerful strategy/building sim in the veins of Dwarf Fortress.

Pros:
-Pretty graphics
-It's fun to run your own little kingdom
-Variety of things to do

Cons:
-Mouse controls are a bit clunky (alpha!)
-Lot to learn even though it's nowhere near DF.
-Slow paced (for those that seek for action/RTS, beware)